


Little Weirdo

by indevan



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-11 17:44:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 16,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short fics about Devyn Tabris, teenaged elf warden freak baby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At a point in the Ortan Thaig, Devyn sat down against the rock wall and put his head between his knees.  In the stillness of the Deep Roads, Leliana could hear his ragged, measured breathing.

“Something wrong with elfy?” Oghren asked.

She had just met him but had already figured out that he wasn’t exactly the most tactful person.  She would like to chalk it up to her training as a Bard but the invasive questions about her undergarments made her able to suss it out.  Leliana stepped forward and bent down next to him.  She placed a hand on the shoulder of the heavy armor he wore and Devyn looked up.  His gaze was always weirdly intense thanks to the webbing of scar tissue but his violet eyes were always warm and even now he had a smile on his face even though it looked strained.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, crinkling her brow.

Hearing her question, Wynne’s hands glowed with white-blue magic. “If you are ailing, I may--”

“No,” he said and then winced. “Sorry, Wynne.  I...I’m fine.  Just a little winded.”

Leliana didn’t buy that for a moment.  He looked reluctant to stand back up and his breathing wasn’t normal.

“Are you sensing too many Darkspawn?” she asked. “I know this is your first time in the Deep Roads.  Maybe it is simply overwhelming?”

“Must be it.” Again, he was lying.

“If you need to rest--”

“I’m fine,” he repeated.

Devyn shakily got to his feet, one hand grasping at the stone of the wall.  Now that she noticed it, though, he had been acting strangely since they’d gotten to Orzammar.  It was barely perceptible but Leliana was always good at reading people.  She had seen Alistair pulling him aside and whispering something into one of his pointed ears while Devyn just shook his head.  She often thought that Devyn kept Alistair as his constant and now he was back at camp rather than with them.  He’d even asked him if he’d be alright down there and he had to have meant since Devyn had never been in the Deep Roads before.

She said no more, however, since it was his business and they continued on at Oghren’s behest.  Later, in the Deep Trenches, Devyn sat down again.  She had been a Shriek dig its claws into a joint of his armor and shot Wynne a look to have her examine him.  Again, he was curled against a wall, his head between his bent knees.

“If you are injured, please say so,” Wynne said as she bent next to him.  She placed the back of her hand against his curved, exposed neck like a mother checking for a fever.

“I’m fine.” He didn’t lift his head up this time. “Really...fine.  Not hurt at all.”

“This what all Wardens do?” Oghren asked, spitting on the ground.

“It’s fine,” Devyn repeated, his words separated by his ragged, uneven breaths. “It’s just...a lot of stone.  Closing in.  Low tunnels.  Fine--really, I’m fine.  Okay.  Yes.”

“Oh!”

Leliana couldn’t believe she hadn’t figured it out sooner.

“You don’t like enclosed spaces!”

He jerked his head up and this time his eyes smoldered and his jaw was set. “That isn’t true.  I’m fine.”

That had to be what Alistair was talking to him about before he left since of course he would share his fear with his lover.

Devyn got to his feet and took a deep, shaky breath.

“See?” He held his arms out. “I’m fine.  I have no problem with being down here!  Now let’s find that Anvil so we can get our troops and get out of here.”

He stomped off deeper into the tunnels and Leliana’s heart hurt for him.  She saw his steps falter as the tunnels narrowed.  A small shift backwards.

“Hmph.  A claustrophobic Warden, huh?” Oghren asked. “What’ll they think of next?”

“I am not claustrophobic,” Devyn spat. “I’m not.”

Yet, when the tunnels constricted further up and light was diminished save for the small spirit Wynne summoned into her hand to act as a light, he fell.  He dropped down and curled into a small ball.  His breath came out in short, ragged gasps.

“No, no, no no,” he whispered between breaths. “No, no.  No, no, no.”

Leliana got down on her knees and tentatively rested a hand on his back, her palm pressed flat against the smooth curve of the silverite of his armor.

“It’s alright,” she assured him. “We will be out of here soon.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said, shaking visibly.

She knew better but she said it anyway to make him feel better. “I know you’re not.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I hear you’re getting out of here.”

Shianni didn’t sound angry when she said it.  More like resigned.  Devyn rubbed the toe of one of his boots--his mother’s boots--over the other.  She grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t do that,” she said, eyes staring into his. “You always do that.”

_And you always tell me to stop,_ he thought.

Because she was the oldest, Shianni had always looked out for him and Soris.  He always counted on her.  And he couldn’t even repay her by getting to her in time.

“I’m sorry,” he said and he didn’t know if it was for the boots or for everything.

“Don’t be.”

Not about the boots, then.  Devyn sat on the bed near her and Shianni reached out and ruffled his hair as she always had when he was little.

“I am...I should have...gotten there sooner.  Or stopped him before he took any of you.  Just like...”

_Mama..._

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Dev.  You were four.  And you can’t blame yourself for this.  I’m fine--going to be fine.  You got us out of there alive.”

She had on her confident, Shianni voice but it sounded strained.

“I...guess...” He bit his lip and stared down at his boots.

“So...you’re leaving?  I heard Nesiara say...”

He looked up and nodded. “I don’t have a choice...”

“Hey, Grey Wardens are great heroes, you know.  And you’re going to be one of them.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t guess,” she told him.  Shianni grabbed his hands and stared him straight in the eye. “Know.”


	3. Chapter 3

“OUT!”

If anyone at camp was asleep, they certainly were no longer at the enraged cry.  Leliana, who had been on watch, looked up just in time to see Alistair forcibly thrown out of Devyn’s tent wearing only his smalls.  Immediately, he got onto his knees and peeked into the tent flap.

“Love?”

She couldn’t help but giggle at how pathetic he sounded.

“Alistair, what’s wrong?”

At the sound of her voice, he must have realized that he was only in his underwear because he turned crimson--a sight she could see even from her spot around the campfire.

“Oh...um...Devyn kicked me out.”

He sheepishly moved his hands over his crotch.  As if on cue, trousers and a shirt came flying out of the tent.

“Put those on!” Devyn’s disembodied voice came out again.

Not wasting any time, he quickly pulled them on.  He shuffled over to where Leliana was and pulled his knees to his chest.

“What happened?” she asked, concerned.

“Uh...it’s embarrassing.”

Devyn’s pale, scarred face came out from between the tent flaps, his eyes set in a glare.

“I kicked him out until he takes a Maker-damned bath.  He SMELLS!”

“I thought you liked the way I smell!”

“Yeah, but you’re going on a week of not bathing.  A WEEK, Alistair.  A week of fighting Darkspawn, werewolves, and giant spiders.  WITHOUT BATHING!”

Again, Leliana couldn’t help but giggle.  It was true.  Alistair often smelled worse than Devyn’s dog.  She just figured that the elf’s love for him trumped his lax hygiene habits.  But even he had a breaking point.

“You should probably go bathe,” she advised him.

Alistair pulled a petulant face and snapped, “You think so?”


	4. Chapter 4

He came in the house and saw him curled up on the bed.  His hands were over his eyes and his heart accelerated at the sight of him.  The healer had said he was lucky to keep his eyesight though he would also keep those scars his whole life.  Were they bothering him?  Was he again hurt?

Cyrion rushed to the bed and Devyn peered at him through his fingers.

“Papa,” he said in a whisper. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

He sighed and sat down.  Picked Devyn up and set him on his lap.

“The Chantry says ghosts don’t exist.”

“I didn’t say the Chantry.” He made a face. “I said you.”

That was a different question.  He didn’t know.  He also didn’t know what to say to a five-year-old child who believed in them so fiercely.

“Did you think you saw a ghost?” he asked again.

Devyn lowered his hands and nodded, eyes wide.  Adaia always said he looked like him with the pale, pale skin and dark hair.  The shape of his eyes, though, was all her.  The other baby--the one that died--looked just like her.  He wondered what Devyn thought he saw.

“I saw mama,” he said.

Cyrion’s chest clenched.

“We don’t know...if she died when they took her,” he said, more to himself.

Devyn smiled with that lack of artifice that only a child could have and said, “It’s okay, papa.  I saw her.  She hugged me.”

And he hugged him, then, holding Devyn to his chest because he was all he had left.  He was his everything.


	5. Chapter 5

Darkness closed around him.  It was solid, hard.  Pushing his breath out of him steadily.  There was barely enough room for him in this oppressive darkness.  The sloth demon had done this.  Broke into his brain and saw his deepest fears.  One of his worst memories.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that this still stopped him after all these years.  He was sure that the demon was laughing somewhere and he sounded just like those human boys who had bolted him in that crate.

It wasn’t fair.

Devyn bit the inside of his cheek, angrier with himself than he was with the demon.  Angry with himself for falling back into being a pathetic, sweating mess whenever he was in an enclosed space.  He was a Warden.  He gritted his teeth, feeling the anger begin to build.

That was right.

He was a Warden.  A Grey sodding Warden.  He wasn’t that little boy anymore.  He tried to move but the darkness pressed against his chest.  His eyes squeezed shut.  Fear clawed at his skull and his breath became ragged.

No.

Something dawned in the back of his mind.  Fear was fear.  He was never going to get over this fear.  Small spaces were always going to scare him.  But when it happened, he couldn’t do this.  Images swam into his mind’s eye: Zevran, Leliana...Alistair.  He couldn’t let his fear, this numbing, paralyzing fear, stop him from helping them.

Devyn reached behind him to get his axe from where it hung on his shoulder.  He got to his feet, holding it in both hands.  He swung and the darkness darted away from his blade.  The demon’s laughter stopped.

“You...you broke out." He sounded mournfully disappointed.

Devyn grinned. “Ha.  Betcha didn’t see that one coming.”


	6. Chapter 6

Maric dressed casually when he went to the Alienage: a worn shirt with the laces undone, his mud-splattered riding boots.  Loghain had bullied him into putting on trousers, though, and the material bunched from where it was tucked into his boots and it annoyed him.  He figured he was still recognizable, though.  Theirin features were pretty easy to spot.  Still, he had to go to the Alienage by himself.  If he was going to start giving aid to the elves, it was going to be on their terms.  Asking them what they wanted and not assuming.

His boots crunched over dirt and stray rocks as he made his way towards the town centre.  To his side, he suddenly heard a hissing noise.

“Pssst.  Pssst.”

Maric turned, wondering what kind of cat made such a noise only to discover that it wasn’t a cat: it was a small boy.  The little elf came out from his hiding place between two buildings and tiptoed over to him.

“Your majesty,” he whispered. “I need your help.”

He took the little boy in: underfed and small--probably older than he looked, too.  His skin was a sickly-looking pale that was pinkening with the promise of a burn already from the sun’s rays.  Curiously violet eyes peered out from under a thatch of black hair.

“What is it?” Maric bent down a little so that he was closer to him.

“Well...my mama got put in the dungeon by some mean men,” he said, eyes wide and scared. “And I wanted to know how she was or, um, if you could free her.”

“I see...what did your mama do?”

He bit his lip before answering, “They found out she could fight and...she insulted them.  So they took her away and kicked me when I ran after her and-and I want her back.”

Tears welled up in his eyes and Maric fought the urge to hug the little boy.  He couldn’t have been older than five.

“I know you can’t take bribes but...if you do it, I can pay you.”

The little boy reached into the pocket of his ratty trousers and extracted four pieces of copper.  Clutching them cupped in both hands, he held them out to Maric.  He smiled.

“You don’t need to pay me.  I’ll look into it.  Don’t you worry.”

His eyes lit up and he hurriedly dropped the coin back into his pocket.

“You will?”

“Of course.  If I can’t get the Arl to free her, I will at least make sure she’s alright.”

“Really?” His face fell for a moment and his brows furrowed in consternation, “but you can’t free her?  But you’re the king!”

“The kind doesn’t have all the power,” he explained. “I’ll try.”

Satisfied, the boy reached into his other pocket and extracted something blobbish and white.

“Can you give this to her?” he asked. “Um...it’s a ghost.”

Maric smiled again and took the token from him.

“What’s your mother’s name?”

“Adaia,” he replied, sounding out each syllable.

“And your name?”

He slapped himself on his chest and proudly said, “Devyn!”


	7. Chapter 7

The Archdemon flags, its head snapping back and forth on its spindly neck as it stumbles and falls to the ground.  You pause, realizing what has to be done.  You look at him, knowing that one of you has to die.  He takes a step forward and you stop him, your eyes imploring him to stop.

“It’ll be me,” you say, and you look at him pathetically, knowing it’ll be the last time you see him.  You commit his face to memory even though you know that driving your sword into the Archdemon’s head will be the last memory you have.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s me.  I’m going to be selfish, you know.  Life without you isn’t life.”

It’s a bad line and usually you would laugh at his attempt to be romantic but your face is mute.

“You have to survive,” you say. “You’re going to be king.  You’re...I can’t let you do this.”

He smiles, a sad sort of thing and there are tears in his eyes. “You say that like I’m giving you a choice.”

He kisses you, catching you off-guard.  His thumbs stroke your cheekbones, right under the lowermost scar.  And for a moment you forget that you’re on the top of a prison surrounded by the dead bodies of Darkspawn and your own men and--most importantly--the not-yet-dead Archdemon.  And while you’re in that place, that place where it is only the two of you, he dashes away and pulls his sword--the sword you found at Ostagar that was his father’s--and you scream his name, realizing that there is no way you can beat him to the dragon.  No way you can stop him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this and all of the fics before it vary in age from eight months ago to a couple weeks ago. Everything else will be new things

After she was taken away—that upstart who took out no less than three of his men barehanded—the captain approached the boy.  An underfed scrap of a thing, he was.  One of his men had kicked him in the stomach when he’d cried out for her.  Now, he was held back by a man, presumably his father.  They had the same deathly pale skin.  The same set of the mouth.

The captain bent down and held his hand out.  The boy snapped at him and bared his teeth.  His eyes were as hard and flat as an amethyst but still, the captain could feel the anger radiating off of his small body.

“Control your whelp,” he told the father curtly.

He was surprised to see the matching looks of defiance in their eyes.  That was all they had, the captain thought with disgust.  Their defiance would get them nothing.  The woman he’d made an example of would make sure of that.  She showed what happened when you didn’t toe the line.

“You took my mama,” the boy said through clenched teeth. “I will make you pay for it one day.”

The captain snorted.

“Sure you will, knife-ear.” He dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Sure you will.”


	9. Chapter 9

Zevran comes to the door just as Devyn’s latest conquest leaves.  He looks like all the others: big, burly, blond.  He seeks them out in crowded taverns and pleasure houses.  There’s always one difference, though, that stops them from being exact replicas of Alistair.  Some have blue eyes.  Some have beards.  Some have potbellies.  Today’s lover boasts fistfuls of beautiful blond ringlets.  He watches him leave and he nearly asks him to stick around for a while for some fun.  Then he remembers why he came back to the room that they’re sharing and decides against it.

Devyn is lying facedown on the bed when he enters.  He isn’t sleeping but nearing it.  Zevran can smell whiskey and rye in the air.

“Are you sober?” Zevran asks.

He lifts his head a little and yawns massively.  He decides not to tell him when he does that that he looks a bit like a cat.

“Mostly,” he replies, voice dry and cracked. “Michel drank most of it, anyway.”

He sits up and grounds at his eyes with the heels of his hands.  Zevran smirks and shifts his hips to the side.

“Michel, eh?  I saw him on my way in.”

A smile creeps onto Devyn’s face as he lowers his hands. “He’s good-looking huh?”

“If I had come a few moments earlier, I’d have invited myself in.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He yawns against and stretches.  When he drops his arms, he idly scratches his side.

“So what is it?”

“I found where the guild meets.”

Devyn nods.  He throws back the sheets and goes to the bucket of magicked water resting on a grate.  Zevran waits to continue until after he pours it over his head and is toweling off.

“It is downtown.  Night has fallen so we can make it there unseen.”

At that, he pulls a face.  Zevran counters it with one of his own.

“Yes, my friend.  That means being sneaky.”

Devyn looks forlornly at his silverite armor and lying unused on the floor.

“I hate sneaking,” he says petulantly. “And I hate not being able to bring my axe.”

“You work fine enough with knives,” Zevran points out.

He still looks peeved and Zevran decides not to point out that disarming techniques and dual-wielding stances were what his mother initially taught him.  He’s brought it up before only to receive a grumpy, “I was five!” in return for his trouble.  He instead decides a different tactic based on how well he knows his friend.

“You will get to punch people.”

Immediately, a grin springs onto his face.

“Alright, I’m there.”


	10. Chapter 10

“It’s getting easier.”

Zevran looks over at him and it’s so dark that he can’t see his face but Devyn can imagine his expression: brows raised, mouth twisting a little to the side.  They’re sitting on a roof, eating pilfered fish chowder from small, shallow bowls.  It’s hardly enough to fuel Devyn’s Warden appetite but then he always enjoyed cooking food more than eating it.

“What is?  Killing Crows?  I never knew you found it difficult.”

And he can see his expression now: a slight smirk, nearly a smile.  Enough to lift the skin under his eyes to give him the look of a trickster.

“No.  This.”

He reaches with his free hand into the tunic he wears and produces the amulet.  Moonlight glints off of its polished surface, disappears into the cracks.  Zevran doesn’t speak for a moment.

“Does this mean you are getting over him?”

Devyn puts the amulet back and shakes his head.

“No.  I don’t think I’ll ever be over him but...when I think about him or when I look at the amulet, I feel...a lot less sad.  I no longer feel like a part of me is shattering.  Now I think...about the good things.  About what we shared.”

He smiles a bit to himself and takes a sip of soup.

“It has been over a year,” Zevran says quietly. “But...I am glad.  For you..”

Devyn grins at him and hopes that the moonlight glints off his teeth so he can see it.

“Yeah...sometimes I worry, though.” He lets the grin fade. “What if this means that I’m going to forget him?”

He feels Zevran’s hand on his shoulder.  It’s his usual feather light touch, but warm at the palm where it’s been holding the bowl.

“You will not.  You are no longer grieving but you will not forget him.”

Devyn pulls the amulet back out and stares at the cracked sun.  He smiles a little.  No, he’s never going to forget him.


	11. Chapter 11

“Ummm...”

Devyn stared blankly at the expanse of moon-reflected water stretching out in front of him.  He shivered a bit, his bony knees knocking together as he stood there in his smalls.

“What is it?”

Alistair was already up to his thighs in the lake, looking like statue the way the moonlight and shadows highlighted and accentuated his muscles.

“Um...” he repeated.

Alistair splashed towards him, clumsily falling onto his knees in the water and ruining the previous image of a statue that had been in Devyn’s mind.

“What?”

He clamored back onto shore, nearly toppling out onto the ground.  Devyn dragged his bare foot through the dirt and bit his lip.

“Well...I don’t think it’s safe to go for a swim.”

“Why not?”

He exhaled a puff of air and said, “Lake monsters.”

“Lake monsters?” Alistair stared at him for a moment before breaking into laughter. “You never cease to amaze me, you know that?”

Devyn sighed and hauled him to his feet.

“I’m serious, Alistair.  There are reports of lake monsters in Ferelden dating back to the Blessed Age and I, for one, do not want to tempt one of them.”

He continued laughing.

“Come on, love.  You would love to meet a lake monster, don’t lie.” He stopped and placed a damp hand on the side of Devyn’s face. “Now what’s the real reason?”

He looked away, embarrassed.

“I can’t swim.”

“What?”

He threw his arms out.

“I can’t swim, alright?  I never learned how!”

Alistair looked confused but Devyn didn’t want to remind him that there was no actual place for him to learn in the Alienage.  Finally, the look cleared away and he nodded.

“Oh, that makes sense...come here.”

“Huh?”

He held his arms out and repeated, “Come here.”

Devyn moved towards him and Alistair took both of his hands.  He guided him into the lake, taking slow, careful steps.  The entrance was easy enough.  The water near the shore only came to Devyn’s shins.  About twenty feet in, though, he felt the uneven floor of the lake begin to shift lower and lower and his heart started thudding in his chest.  He wasn’t afraid of drowning but being stuck underwater reminded him too much of being stuck anywhere where it was dark and he didn’t like it.

“Here, put your arms around my neck.”

Alistair drew him in and he complied.  Instinctively, his legs wrapped around the other man’s waist.

“It’s alright,” Alistair murmured into his hair. “I’ve got you.  You’ll always be safe with me.”

The line was so cheesy that Devyn had to laugh.  He scooped up a handful of water and splashed him.

“You dork!”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter includes mentions of internalized abuse and neglect!

Devyn storms into the bedroom the Arl so graciously gave him.  Of course the man didn’t simply give him one room to share with Alistair, that would be too convenient.  No, he would rather see Devyn as simply a means to an end (the end meaning Loghain’s fall) and treat him as less than human in every other juncture.  He loathes the man, he’s realized.  Loathes him for how he treated Alistair when he was a child and for what he said.

Anger burns hot in his chest, pressing against his ribs so hard that he feels that they might break.  The way he dismissed the slave trade in the Alienage, giving it a weak tag-on of “oh that’s terrible!” before nearly rubbing his hands in glee for being able to pin it on Loghain.  Devyn doesn’t regret going off on him like he did.  That the Arl had the nerve to say it to his face.  The nerve to look right at him and dismiss what happened to his people, to his family.

He clenches his fists, itching for something to hit, to break.  He wishes he could ram his fist right into Eamon’s smug, bearded face.

“Love?”

Devyn whirls around.

“What?!” He speaks far more harshly than he means and then softens his voice, “What?”

Alistair lingers in the doorway as if he’s unsure if he wants to come in or not.  Finally, he steps forward but doesn’t step near him.

“You...shouldn’t have yelled at the Arl like that...”

Again, anger flares and he pulls his lips back in a snarl.

“Excuse me?!”

Alistair cringes. “I mean...he was just being pragmatic--”

“That is no excuse!  You can’t admit it that he doesn’t see elves as people!  That he only sees me as a tool against Loghain!  That he has the nerve to say that to my face when _they put my father in a cage!_ ”

He flexes his fists, wanting so desperately to punch a chair or the wall or anything.

“Devyn, please.  Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable?  You think I’m being unreasonable?  For not taking the Arl’s shit?  You said you like it when I’m ‘brave,’ didn’t you?  When I stand up for myself?  Then why are you taking his side now?!”

Alistair draws in a breath and says, “There’s a difference between bravery and recklessness.  And I’m not...taking his side.  I just think you should apologize for yelling at him.”

His eyes fly open wide and the anger comes out like vomit.

“Apologize?  Apologize for what?  And you are taking his side!  You’re supposed to be on my side!  Not...not just because we’re lovers but we’re Wardens together.  Brothers-in-arms!  But no.  You bend over for Eamon like you owe him!”

Alistair is starting to shake now, perhaps in anger.

“I do not bend over for him!  And I do owe him.  He took me in when he didn’t have to--”

“HE ABUSED YOU!” Devyn screams. “Those stories you tell about getting locked in cages or being made to sleep outside--those aren’t funny little anecdotes!  He neglected and abused you and you’ve internalized some sort of fucking guilt-complex where you think you owe him but you don’t!  He owes you!  He owes you everything for how he treated you!”

Alistair balls his fists and stamps his foot like a petulant child.

“No!  It isn’t like that!”

“Yes it is!”

He draws in a breath and says in a much calmer voice, “What about you, then?”

Devyn scowls and folds his arms over his chest.

“What about me?”

Alistair is looking at him and he can feel the anger and hurt burning in his usually warm gaze.  He nearly looks away but then he’s never learned to back down from a fight.

“Back in the Alienage, all those men you said you slept with.  How you thought it was okay to let them use you because you deserved it!”

“That has nothing to do with Eam--”

“No, I need to get this out.  It’s the same as me and what you said about Eamon.  You don’t realize that these men hurt you!  And how much I wish I could hurt them for it!”

“It’s not the same!”

Alistair stamps his foot again.

“Yes it is, damnit!”

“It’s not and...you’re changing the subject!” he snaps. “I’m not apologizing to Eamon and you’re a jackass if you think that I should.”

His eyes go wide for a moment and look of surprise crosses his face.

“I’m a...fine, Devyn.  Stay mad.  I’ll be in my room if you ever come to your senses.”

Alistair turns on his heel and leaves.  After he does, Devyn slams the door behind him and lets out an angry yell.

“Come to my senses?!” he shouts at the thick, unyielding wood. “You...ARGH!”

He throws the door open once more and stomps into the hall.  He needs to sublimate his anger.  He needs to punch until his knuckles are bloody and more bruised than they are regularly.  He storms his way down to the training yard that is mercifully empty.  Good.  He doesn’t want anyone caught in the crossfire of his rage.

Devyn realizes a beat later that he didn’t bring his axe but he doesn’t mind.  Practicing with a weapon wasn’t what he had in mind.  He starts on a dummy, pummeling it with both hands.  Pretending to parry moves, kicking it in the side.  Hitting, punching, yelling, panting.  Pretending the dummy is Eamon.  Not Alistair.  Alistair has a warped perception of his foster-father and he probably always will and he...probably doesn’t need Devyn yelling at him about it.

He lowers his fists and rests his burning forehead against the packed straw of the dummy.  Maybe...he was a little out of line.  Not at Eamon--no, he still thinks he deserves every bit of venom he spat at him.  But Alistair...he should apologize.

Suddenly, he’s aware that he’s no longer alone in the training yard.  With a start, he turns round and sees Alistair lingering at the edges of the stone courtyard.

“I wanted to come apologize.”

He opens his hands out and smiles sheepishly.

“How’d you know I was here?” he asks.

“Well, when you’re angry you usually hit things or bake things and I know you’ve been banned from the kitchens for meddling too much with the cook’s work so...I came here.”

Devyn walks towards him.  His hands feel raw and he lets them dangle at his sides as he walks, head bowed.

“I’m sorry,” Alistair says. “I...shouldn’t have said that about your past.”

He bites his lip and says back, “I shouldn’t have said that about you and Eamon.  It wasn’t my place.”

Alistair places rough fingers on his chin and tilts his head up so their gazes meet.

“I also wanted to apologize for saying _you_ should apologize to Eamon.  You’re allowed your anger and...obviously, not being an elf, I didn’t realize that.  So.  I’m sorry.”

He smiles softly and turns his chin to nuzzle into Alistair’s hand.

“It’s okay.  I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that...”

“It’s fine...” Alistair opens his hand to cup his face.  His thumb traces over one of his scars. “So are we good?”

Devyn nods. “Yeah, we’re good.”

He rolls his eyes upward for a moment and then says, “So...can we go have makeup sex now?”

He bursts into laughter and takes a step away from him.

“Oh, Maker’s shithole, I’ve made you addicted, haven’t I?”

Alistair wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him close.  Buries his nose in his hair.

“Only with you, my love.  Only with you.”


	13. Chapter 13

Leliana knew it made sense.  Cassandra would go look for the Champion and she would look for the Warden.  She knew him.  She traveled with him for almost a year.  She was the ideal.  Granted, she had not seen him nor heard from him in nearly a decade.  She only knew that he was somewhere in Antiva and that purportedly Zevran was with him.  Still, it was something to go by and more than any of the other Seekers could say about the elusive Warden and so she was off to Antiva.

It was surprisingly easy to find him.  Devyn, it seemed, was not living in anonymity in Antiva City.  Everyone knew the duo of elves who slaughtered the Crows over the span of seven years.  It was still easy to pick him out in a crowd as well.  His hair was long, now, and twisted into a knot on the back of his head.  Still, there was no mistaking his blackberry eyes or his scars.

Someone cleared their throat behind her.  Leliana turned and saw Zevran leaning casually against a wall.  He looked much the same.  Like Devyn, his hair was longer, half of it pulled up into a thin horsetail while the rest hung well past his shoulders.

“Oh, Zevran.  Hello.  It’s been so long, has it not?” she asked, keeping her voice neutral.

He turned out his palm and said, “It has.  Good to see you, Seeker.”

Leliana’s stomach dropped.  So while she knew nothing of changes in Devyn’s life, he and Zevran both knew the changes in hers.

“I need to speak to him.”

“Need is a strong word.”

“Zevran...”

He gave her a little wave and darted into an alleyway.  Leliana sighed.  He knew this city and she did not.  Giving chase would be fruitless.  Instead, she focused on getting to Devyn before Zevran did.

It was for nought, it seemed, as when she finally caught up with him, he was wearing what appeared to be a fake moustache.  It was yellow in color and most certainly didn’t match his black hair.  Never minding the fact that elves couldn’t grow facial hair.

“Zevran told you,” she said, disappointed.

“Who?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.  Devyn spoke in a voice that was both high and gruff, a combination of him trying to modulate his usually raspy tones. “I don’t know who that is.  I am but a merchant.”

Leliana sighed.

“Please.  At least listen to me?  The War...we need you.  You are their Hero!”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I am sorry, serrah, but I do not know of this Devyn of whom you speak.”

She narrowed her eyes and reached forward to rip off his fake moustache.

“I didn’t say Devyn.”

He rubbed his upper lip and frowned.

“Aw, nerts.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, this is actually another mega-old one I didn't find before. I think this might be the actual first one I wrote about him?

“You’re gorgeous, you know that?” Alistair asks.

He runs the back of his hand down Devyn’s cheek and he feels a blush rise to his cheeks.  No one ever told him he was gorgeous.  At best, he got “cute.”  Alarith said he was cute.  He remembered the way he had held him, in the storeroom behind the shop because it was the only place they could get any privacy.  Other men said it, too.  “Cute for an elf,” usually from the humans.  But he had liked that.  He’d liked being wanted even if it was from some shem who wanted his body and nothing else.

Devyn grunts a little and pulls himself closer around Alistair, wrapping his arms and legs around the other man’s torso.

“Ah, yes, pure poetry,” Alistair says and drops a kiss on the top of his head.

“I’m not good with words,” Devyn counters, nuzzling his head on his chest.

“Oh, really?  Because I’ve heard you ramble on for hours about ghosts and werewolves and--”

“That’s completely different and you know it.”

He chuckles and runs a hand down his back.  Devyn arches forward at the touch, leaning in like a cat.

“You know, when the guard finally lets us into the Alienage, what’s your family going to say about you...being with a human?”

He shrugs in response, really not sure what he’s going to say.  He’s a bit surprised that he’s fallen in love with a human.  He’d had sex with men, yes, but always thought if he found someone to love him and who he could love, it would be another elf.

“And how many jealous boyfriends shall I see, huh?” he jokes, pulling himself more tightly around Devyn to circle him entirely with his arms.

He snorts. “I’ve never had...none of my former lovers would care enough to be jealous.”

Maybe Alarith.  He thinks if he didn’t have his arranged marriage, maybe they could have had something.

“Oh, so you’ve been with...a lot of men.”

“Yes.  Sometimes it’s a thing to do.”

“And you had all the boys in the Alienage after you, then?” He kisses his head again. “You were that irresistable?”

Devyn squirms a bit in his arms and says, “They wanted me because they knew I would fuck them.”

It sounds more bitter than he intended.

“You mean...”

“Everyone...” He closes his eyes. “I thought no one would want me because of my scars.  So whenever anyone did I...and then I got a reputation.  For being the kid who would fuck.”

He feels Alistair looking at his face and at the spidery lines around his eyes that almost look like a scarred mask.  Remnants of a childhood accident when he, Soris, and Shianni were playing with things they shouldn’t have--namely fire.  Well, he and Shianni were.  Soris stood over them, wringing his hands and saying that they were going to get in trouble.

Alistair runs a hand down his back again. “I didn’t...I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he assures him. “I’m fine.  It’s never really...look, it isn’t a big deal.  And now I have you.”

He dislodges one of Alistair’s arms from around him and laces his fingers through his.

“Now you have me,” he echoes, grinning. “And I have you, you gorgeous elf, you.”

He leans down to kiss him and Devyn catches his lower lip between his teeth as he pulls back.

“I love you, you know,” Alistairs says.

“I love you, too.”

“And now, about your family...”

“Oh, they’re totally going to hate you.”

He laughs and says, “Thought as much.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so Devyn isn't technically in this one...

“I’m gonna do it,” Cyrion said.  He balled his fists and thumped them down on the table.

“Gonna do what?” His older sister, Chelis, leaned down over him and tweaked his ear as though he was a child.

“I’m going to go hunt for the Dalish.” At her incredulous look, he hastily added, “Alright, maybe I can cook for the Dalish.”

Chelis patted his head condescendingly and turned round to continue getting ready.  Cyrion sighed.  He was the youngest in the family and, of course, the last to get married.  He had put it off as long as possible.  He didn’t want to be tied down to anyone.  His sisters laughed at him as they always did.  Chelis and Norah were well older than him and had raised him after their parents both died of a wasting, bloody cough.

“So you’re doing it on your wedding day?” Norah asked.

“You stopped me every other time I tried,” he pointed out.

In addition to being the youngest, he was also much smaller than most everyone he knew so it was easy for his sisters to simply pick him up and cart him away when he tried making a break for it.

“Stop whining, baby brother,” Chelis said.  She came over to him while holding something wrapped. “And put on your wedding shirt.”

Cyrion took the package from her with the same level of disgust as he would if Chelis had handed him a bag full of horse shit.  He unfurled the shirt, noticing how small it was with little interest.

“Looks like your future bride got your measurements right,” Norah remarked.

He grumbled under his breath as he exchanged his nightshirt for the fine linen one.  He tossed the worn flannel shirt he wore to bed to the ground and Chelis immediately scooped it up and hung it on a hook.  He put on his cleanest pair of trousers and a pair of black weave boots.  Norah was on him in a moment, her hands already in his hair to braid it.

“The embroidery on this is nice,” Chelis remarked.  She was fingering the hem of his shirt while Norah twisted and tugged his unruly black hair behind him.

She would know.  Chelis was gifted with sewing.  There was nothing she couldn’t make, he thought, and often her skills were what kept them from starving.

“Great,” he deadpanned.

Norah continued tugging at his hair and he winced when she pulled too hard.

“Oh, stop being a baby, Cee.  There.  I’m done.”

He glanced at himself in the looking glass.  He didn’t really look much like himself but he thought it was alright.  He looked presentable anyway.

“I’ll look good when I hop the fence and run away,” he said.

Chelis tugged on his ear again.

“At least meet her first.”

Together, his sisters marched him out the door and right into someone standing on the other side.  The girl gave a muted sound of pain as she stepped back.  Cyrion paused as he watched her recover from the sudden intrusion.  His eyes went wide.  Standing in front of him was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Her hair was a yellow color too bright to be called blond and worn short.  Her skin was brown and her eyes were almost as yellow as her hair.  A bright, wide smile was on her face despite the fact that his sisters had just shoved him into her.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Adaia.  Are you Cyrion?”

“Yes!” he said far too loudly. “I am Cyrion.  That’s me.”

He smiled back and he felt something blossom between them.  A sort of warmth, it felt, and a wave of affection.

Chelis leaned in and mockingly whispered, “Still want to go cook for the Dalish?”


	16. Chapter 16

Devyn folded his arms over his chest and regarded the statue with the curl of his upper lip.

“They never get my nose right, do they?”

He was surprised that they had erected a statue to him at all since he pretty much abandoned Ferelden after the Blight in his teenage grief and anger.  Yet, there he was in all of his granite, adolescent glory.

He shifted his gaze to the side and his breath caught in his throat.  His eyes went wide.  He saw the other statue.  Instinctively, his hand went to the necklace he still wore all these years later.  The rose had long since crumbled into nothing.  He started to tremble and reached out tentatively with his other hand to place it on the rock.

All at once, he was seventeen again, standing on the top of Fort Drakon.  Screaming and screaming until his throat was raw and scorched from the soot and smoke and from his own wails.  Trying desperately to claw his way out of Zevran’s grasp as if he could somehow stop Alistair from slaying the Archdemon.

Tears choked him and he leaned heavily on the statue of his dead lover, crying until his chest ached.  When the tears were gone--seeped into the stone--he rested his forehead against it and stayed that way until dusk when Zevran finally came to fetch him.


	17. Chapter 17

“What makes you think it’s gonna be a boy?” Cyrion asked.

Adaia smiled and put both hands over her middle. “We’re son-makers.  I can feel it.”

The baby looked like him with his deathly pale skin and a thick thatch of black hair that looked ridiculous on a newborn.  He had blue circles under his eyes and was so small that even Cyrion could hold him crooked in one arm.

“He’s perfect,” Chelis said, looking down in the cradle. “But he looks like he might break.”

When she said it, her hands were over her stomach where her own child was growing.  Adaia loved the baby more than anything.  She was always holding him, cradling him to her chest.  One day, Cyrion came in from work to see her nursing him.

“His eyes are purple,” she murmured. “That’s from my family.  We all have strange eyes.  Like mine...his...my mother said it was because magic was in our blood many generations ago.”

“He still needs a name,” Cyrion said.

He stuck his finger down and, without missing a beat, the baby’s hand shot out to wrap around it.  He had a strong grip, this baby.

“What was your father’s name?” she asked. “I never knew mine.”

“Soris.  But I think that’s what Chelis wants to name her child.  Especially since Norah’s named hers after our mother.” He wiggled his finger and the baby smiled around Adaia’s nipple.

“Legacy names are hard, anyway,” Adaia said quietly. “He should have his own name.  His own destiny.”

Adaia later pulled the name from nothing.  A name she liked.

“Devyn,” she said to him. “The baby’s name is Devyn.”


	18. Chapter 18

For a long time, he was underwater.  The aftermath, the coronation, the journey.  Going north as the air stilled and warmed.  Where the sun shone more readily and there was breeze instead of harsh wind.  Looking down from the boat, he saw himself floating in the ocean.  Swimming cushioned in his own grief.  He wasn’t out of it.  He didn’t know if he would ever be out of it.  Not when he could still remember the feel of Alistair’s hands on his body.  The way his cheeks pinkened when he asked if they could try something new in bed.  The way his smile kicked up higher on one side.  His awkward cough of a chuckle and the way his knees touched when he wasn’t purposely pushing them apart in a battle stance.

When he finally surfaced, the first breath he took filled his lungs rushing coolness.  The water was gone and he was floating, now, atop the sea.  It was later still when the hand finally reached down and hauled him up.  Awoke him from his slumber with chaste kisses on his closed, quivering eyelids.  The day he realized that grief no longer overwhelmed him.  That he could think about Alistair without choking.  Without sinking.

The pain comes back and it’s not water but molten metal that he’s floating in.  Not burning but sinking and devoid of any sensations.  Falling into grief and feeling like a teenager again, even if by all accounts he still is one.  And the hand comes back.

Smooth, dexterous hands and the melodic voice of the person attached to them soothing him.  Stroking his hair.  Pulling him into waiting arms to help him through it.  Without that, without Zevran, he knows that he would not be alive.  When he tells him this, he says the same thing back.  Without each other, they’d be gone.  For awhile, maybe he wanted that.  He wanted to be gone so they could be together again.  But now he wants to live.  He wants to live for both of them.


	19. Chapter 19

The matchmaker sat at the worn, gouged table and sipped her herb-steep.  Cyrion sat across from her, visibly nervous.  She opened her hand out and smiled.

“Tell me about him.”

He took in a deep breath and said, “My son is very talented at cooking.  He likes to read--”

“He can read?” She looked impressed.

Cyrion nodded.

“He loves reading.”

He decided it best not to intimate that his son’s interest in reading ranged to old folktales and anti-Chantry books on the supernatural.

“What else?”

“Um...he’s kind.  Protective.  Of his family.  If someone he loves is in danger, he is very protective.”

At that, the matchmaker frowned.  She placed her cup down and folded her hands.

“With words,” Cyrion added hastily. “He is protective with words.  Not violence.  Never violence.  And not to humans.  He isn’t a troublemaker.”

He forced a thin smile onto his face and her frown deepened.

“I should hope not.  Especially with what happened to your wife.”

Cyrion swallowed thickly and felt the back of his neck prickle.  He could feel his own temper, long dormant since his teen years, bubbling under the surface.  Should she say anything about Adaia he didn’t know what he would do.

“Devyn is not like that,” he said in a measured voice. “He knows the danger.”

“I should hope so.” She took another sip. “It was a hard lesson for a five-year-old to learn but I am glad that he has.”

Cyrion’s hands tightened into fists under the table and he took in a deep, calming breath.  The door to the house banged open.  The matchmaker jumped and spilled the herb-steep into her lap.  He turned and saw Devyn stumble into the house.  He was covered in mud and had what appeared to be a split lip and black eye.  Dried blood ran down to his chin, mixing with the mud in a sort of reddish brown slurry.  The matchmaker glared at him as she dabbed her skirts with a handkerchief.

“Devyn?” Cyrion asked.

He looked at them with wide-eyed innocence and awkwardly straightened himself.  His dirty, grubby hands tugged on the hem of his shirt to straighten it but there was no making himself look presentable.  Not with that much mud and grime on him.

“Hi, papa.  Um...hello...guest.”

He jerkily bowed and grimaced, apparently having realized that this woman was more than just one of their regular guests.

“Young man, were you in a fight?”

He straightened and let out a raspy laugh, manners forgotten.

“Yeah, and you should see the other guy!”

Cyrion resisted the urge to hit himself in the face.

“In an unrelated story, if you see a tooth out there near the south gate, it’s probably mine.” He grinned and added, “My last baby tooth!  Seventeen and I finally lost the last one.”

The matchmaker rose to her feet and tucked her stained handkerchief into her pocket.

To Cyrion she said, “I will go to Highever and see what I can do.”


	20. Chapter 20

The second time Devyn leaves the Alienage, he’s ten.  The first time was three years earlier that ended with him being locked in a crate for ten hours.  Now he knows not to spit and swear at humans who can overpower him despite his abnormal strength.  He also knows not to walk around as if he’s anything special.  He wishes he could.  He wishes that he can stomp around like the King and dare anyone to say anything.

Today he hangs by the Chantry because his papa said that if anyone tries to bother him then a Sister or Mother will come to his aid.  Even at age ten, he doubts it but he agrees because he doesn’t want to worry his father.  He worries him too much already.

He stands up on a box near the wall and peeks over the edge into the Chantry courtyard.  The gate is open and he can walk in if he wants but where’s the fun in that?  He has to stand on the very tips of his toes, which he thinks might have been easier if he wore shoes.  He can hear Aunt Norah scolding him already from her spot in the bed that she never leaves.  That she hasn’t left since Aunt Chelis died.

In the courtyard he sees a boy going to get water from the well.  He’s got clean clothes and alright-looking shoes and Devyn figures him to be a Chantry orphan.  Maybe someone in line to be a baby Templar.  He’s bad at judging ages but he guesses him to be thirteen.  He’s chubby and his blond hair is shorn but messy, like Devyn’s constantly is.

The boy stops at the well and glances up as if he knows he’s being watched.  His gaze catches Devyn’s and he sticks his tongue out.  The boy sticks his out back and they share a silent laugh.  A Sister sees it and raps him across the back of his knees.  She shakes her head and goes back to the Chanter’s Board to spew more of the Maker’s word.  Devyn mouths an apology to the boy and he shrugs even though his eyes are watering with pain.

He forgets about the boy soon after he goes back home and assumes the boy does likewise.  Neither of them remember the encounter seven years later when Devyn arrives at Ostagar, dressed in the same blood-stained clothes that he killed Vaughan in.  He brushes his hands over the stains, though he isn’t ashamed of them--he wants humans to know what elves can do--as the mage storms past him, muttering swears at the laughing man in armor.  He looks at him and when he talks, there’s still laughter chasing on the edges of his words.

“You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”


	21. Chapter 21

Alistair leans against the counter and props his chin in his hands.  He smiles, his cheeks pressed together, making the curve of his lips look silly and almost a struggle to curl up.

“What?” Devyn asks.

He turns round from the stove and puts his flour-covered hands on his hips.  The Arl’s cooks have allowed him back in the kitchens so long as he only cooks himself and doesn’t critique anyone else.

“Oh, nothing.  I’m just...” He trails off and sighs happily.

This is different, he thinks.  The two of them in a moment of respite.  The Landsmeet is over.  In the morning, they leave for Redcliffe but right now there is peace.

“What?” he repeats.

He goes to the counter and runs his hand through Alistair’s hair, smearing flour in it.

“Just that I could get used to this.  You cooking for me.  Us...being happy.  Normal.”

“There’s no normalcy for a King,” he reminds him, letting his words be teasing.

Alistair rolls his eyes like a child.

“I know that but.  It’ll be calmer.  Than running for our lives.  Fighting the Blight.  We can have...more moments like these I guess is what I’m saying.”

Devyn smiles and leans down to kiss him.  Alistair’s lips are sweet from the cookies he’s already eaten even.  He’s right.  Deep down he knows that no one will accept a Warden, an elf, a man as the Royal Consort but he’ll be with Alistair and that’s alright.  He doesn’t care where they are so long as they’re together.  He’s never been in love before.

“It’ll be nice,” Alistair says once they part. “I do the boring ruling thing all day while you read new folklore in the archives or practice swinging that axe into dummies and then I come back and let you fatten me up on baked goods.”

“You’d allow that?” he teases.

“Of course!  Ruling is hard work.  I need some sweetness and pampering, you know.”

“Well,” Devyn says. “I do like men a bit thicker round the middle...”

“So you’ve said before...so I’ve got some catching up to do.”

He comes behind him and slips his arms around Alistair’s waist, presses his face against his back still curved from where he leans over the counter.

“After the Blight I will bake you the biggest cake in all of Thedas.”

“Ah, this is why I love you...”

“The only reason?”

“Oh, there are many but we’d be here all night.”

Devyn rolls his eyes at the sappiness.

“Adorable.  Now come on.  We have a long day tomorrow and getting you up is a hassle.”

He lets go and rubs his hands on his back to urge him up.

“Oh, don’t complain about me.  You’re the one stuck with me.”

Alistair rises and turns round, his hands slipping to close around Devyn’s waist.  He leans down and kisses him again, his teeth nibbling on his lower lip.  Even just a few weeks ago, Alistair would not have been so bold.  He’s come a long way, his future King.  His dopey lover.  He gently takes both of his hands and begins leading him from the kitchen.

“Come on, love.  Bed.  Now.” He puts enough suggestion on the last word to that he hopes Alistair gets the point.

His eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh?  You don’t fancy doing it in the kitchens?”

“Well I would but I’m sure no one else would be happy.” He grins and adds, “You’re a screamer.”

Alistair pouts exaggeratedly.

“You’re not exactly silent either!”

Devyn laughs and kisses him again.

“Come on.  Beds are best for it, anyway.”

“Definitely nicer than a tent,” he agrees.

Together they leave the kitchens, still holding hands.  In the doorway outside the room the Arl has given Devyn--since he did not have them share--Alistair pauses.

“What happens...after all this,” he says, voice suddenly grave and it’s offset by the fact that his breath still smells of cookies, “I love you.  More than anything, I love you.”

Devyn feels his face heat and he looks away, embarrassed.  When he and Alistair first got together, he clung to him like a fixed point during a storm.  Now that innate desire had rooted deep in his heart and blossomed into love.

“I love you, too,” he says and the words are still uneasy even though he knows them to be true.  No one has dared love him before but, to be fair, he has never dared to love someone before.

He takes his hand once more and leads him into the bedroom.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a modern au! Devyn and Alistair couldn't feasibly be part of a coffee shop AU because Alistair would burn himself on the espresso machine and Devyn would yell at anyone who back-talks him. So. Bake shop AU.

Maybe screaming at his dad was a mistake.  Maybe dredging up his past was a mistake but his father’s visible and obvious glee at the fact that he and Duncan broke up had made him angry.  Stupid dad.  And stupid Cailan for spilling the beans and then having the audacity to widen his eyes with innocence and say, “Oops.”

Alistair knew his father never approved of him dating Duncan, a man twice his age, especially for his first relationship but he didn’t have to rub it in over dinner about how happy he was and how he said they were going to break up--that he _knew_ it.  So maybe Alistair blew up and maybe he threw it in his dad’s face that he had two kids from two different women before he was twenty and, yes, bringing up his dad’s struggle with alcoholism was probably not a good idea but he was angry.  And he didn’t really get angry often, which made his bouts of anger even worse.

“But it was righteous anger!” he told his passenger in the car, who was of course no one since he had stormed out and driven away angrily, stranding his friend Ian at the house with no way back to their apartment.

He sighed, knowing he’d have to go back and make amends...and get Ian.  He pulled off into a shopping center to turn around since he wasn’t exactly the handiest driver when it came to u-turns.  In the small strip of stores, he saw a bakery and, without thinking, pulled into a space.  Maybe if he came back with baked goods, he could put off any more fighting.  If his dad sought his usual remedy after getting worked up, then he’d probably have a case of the munchies by the time Alistair got there.

He killed the engine and ambled in the bakery, which was devoid of any customers.  He figured it was a holiday and that the place was even open on Thanksgiving was no small miracle.  In fact, the only person in the bakery was the clerk behind the counter.  He was a tiny thing--didn’t look older than thirteen--and was so deeply engrossed in the book he was reading that he didn’t even look up when the bell on the door chimed.

Alistair walked nervously up to the counter and cleared his throat.  The boy looked up and snapped his book shut.  Alistair caught the briefest glimpse of the title: _American Wolfman!_ it said in bold, frightening letters.

“Hi!” he said brightly and in a voice that was surprisingly deep and raspy for his size. “What can I do you for?”

“Um…” Alistair stared down in the bake case, suddenly unsure of what to buy. “What do you recommend?”

He shrugged slender shoulders.

“It’s all pretty good.  I made the cupcakes, though, so I’m a bit biased towards them.”

Alistair glanced up and saw that he was grinning.  He also saw that framing a rather striking pair of violet, almond-shaped eyes was a web of pinkish scar tissue.  He had smooth skin otherwise and, actually, was rather cute.  A thatch of messy black hair hung down over his forehead and to the bridge of his nose.  Suddenly Alistair wanted nothing more than a cupcake.

“Uh...then that’s what I’ll have.  A cupcake.”

“Which one?”

“What?”

“Which one?” he repeated. “We have thirty-six different varieties of cupcakes.”

“...Oh.”

Alistair felt his face heat up.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I’m not usually this...well, this.  But I had a fight with my dad and I’m trying to find a peace offering and...wow, why am I telling you this?  You don’t care.”

The boy waved a hand dismissively.

“It’s fine.  I’ve heard worse.  Although it makes me glad that we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

“You don’t?  Why not?”

He grinned and said, “My mom is Native American.  I grew up on the rez.  So...Thanksgiving isn’t exactly a thing in our house.”

“Ah,” Alistair said, nodding in understanding.  Then, awkwardly, he added, “I’m Alistair.”

He looked at the boy’s apron where the name “Devyn” was stitched.

“And I take it you’re Devyn?”

“How’d you guess?” His grin widened. “And I recommend the orange dreamsicle, by the way.  Good for smoothing things over.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm not going to do a coffee shop au!" I said. And then I did.

When Devyn left his MMA practice, Zevran was waiting outside for him and that was never usually a good sign.

“Hey, Zev,” he said in a tight, unamused voice.

Zevran was his best friend but usually when he took the effort to catch a bus downtown to meet him after practice, it was never for any good reason.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked and at least he had the good sense to just get right to it.

“Watching a couple episodes of Monster Quest and then Cupcake Wars is on at eight.  Why?”

Zevran grinned deviously and grabbed his arm.  Devyn was wiped from practice and had no choice but to be pulled behind him.

“No you’re not.  We are going to the new coffee shop down the block.”

That was a bit of a surprise.  Usually when Zevran decided their plans for the evening, it involved sweaty, packed nightclubs with pulsing lights and pounding house music.

“What?  Why?”

Zevran sighed and said, “Because aren’t you sick of picking up guys at clubs?  I’m sick of the club scene.”

“No you’re sick of having slept with everyone in the club,” Devyn corrected.

“Regardless.”

He rolled his eyes.  When Zevran got an idea in his head, usually it was best just to go along with it.  Still, he figured that he should put up token resistance.

“Why a coffee shop, though?”

“It’s a change of scenery.  Besides, I know you’re sick of sucking off bears in the back of the club every other night.”

That was true.  He had been picking up some rather unsavory randoms lately.  Maybe Zevran was right.  A change of scenery that was not a sex-fueled club could be good for them.

“I don’t even like coffee.”

“Then get juice or something.”

Zevran recommenced tugging him until he brought him to the correct location.  It was an alright coffee shop, Devyn thought.  Kind of directly inspired by Friends with the velvet couch and coffee table.  Two guys were at the counter.  One was kind of generically handsome.  Cute but generically handsome.  Spiky blond hair, chin scruff, brown eyes like a puppy.  Big, though.  Devyn liked them big.  The other was so beautiful, it hurt.  He had loads of inky black hair piled into a messy bun on his head and the look and build of a model.  He was more Zevran’s type--though “almost everyone” was Zevran’s type.

They neared the counter and hot guy looked at them, snapping his gum and looking bored.  How he could be both entirely bored and entirely hot was extremely unfair.

“Yeah?” he asked irritably. “Uh...I mean...what would you like?”

Devyn stared blankly at the menu, unsure what to get.  He mumbled something involving cookies and cream.  Zevran paid for them and he figured it was the least he could do considering coming here was his idea in the first place.

“Names?”

This from blond goatee who was smiling in a self-conscious way.

“Zevran.”

“Devyn...with a y,” he said and then cringed.  He didn’t know why he bothered.  No one spelled his name right.

Goatee smiled and scribbled on the cup.  They were up in short order and he only heard Goatee yelp in pain once as he scalded himself with the hot milk for Zevran’s drink.

“Here.”

“Is your hand alright?” Devyn asked.  It looked pretty bright red.

Hot guy leaned over, smacking his gum.

“Second degree burns.  Good going, Alistair.  Go get ice and fill out an incident report.”

Goatee--Alistair, apparently--slunk into the kitchen while Zevran and Devyn retreated to the couches with their drinks.

“How badly did he mangle your name?” Devyn asked.

He slurped up his sugary, caffeinated concoction through the straw.  It was good.  Better than Starbucks, at least.

“Zefron,” Zevran said with a sigh.

He nearly snorted cookies and cream out his nose.

“Isn’t that what Leliana calls that kid from _High School Musical_?”

“Shut up.  What’s yours say?”

Devyn regarded the cup and felt a blush rise to his cheeks.

“Oh, uh...that Alistair kid spelled it right.”

Zevran leaned over and let out a low whistle.

“And he drew a heart around it…” He squinted. “Is that a heart?  It looks like a lopsided peach.”

Devyn’s face grew hotter and he sucked down more of his drink to cool down.  He wasn’t about to admit it but this was way better than sucking off some bear in the back of the club.


	24. Chapter 24

You don’t know why they still call on you.  You shirked your duty a decade ago when you were a teenager.  When you were young and grieving.  You’re still grieving.  Not like before but in your own way.  You still wear his necklace.

You stand there and Zevran’s with you because he’s always with you and Orlais is different from Antiva and you don’t really like it.  You never were patriotic towards Ferelden until you had to be but now you wish you could go back and make fun of Orlesian accents and stinky cheeses with Alistair.

Old wounds are the worst.  You think they’re closed but you move a certain way and they gap open.  Ooze blood out and you have to stitch them up again, swigging whiskey and hissing in pain.

There’s another man, a human.  He’s tall--taller than you, at least, but that’s no great feat--and he has a fox-like face with quick, amber eyes.  Blue facial tattoos, stubble, and too-long sideburns that look ridiculous with his short hair.  He is the Champion, you’re told.  Hawke.  Who kickstarted this war because he trusted the wrong person.  A former Warden mage with a spirit living in his head.  At least that wasn’t your fault.  That was Camille’s, the Warden-Commander from Orlais.  He had only come because Riordan was his lover.  You and he had something in common.  Losing your love during the Blight.  He’s here, scowling and cranky from being woken up.

The last is the elf.  He blinks at you all with gray, curious eyes and rubs his nose nervously with his hand.  Blond hair falls over one shoulder in a loose, haphazard braid.  You feel comfortable with the elf.  You don’t trust humans, never really did.  The only human you trusted so wholly, with every fiber of your being, was dead and you think even after all this time you died along with him.

“Hey,” the elf says and then he frowns, realizing it’s too casual. “Uh...I mean...hello.  I’m glad you’re all here.  I’m Gabriel but, uh, you’ve probably heard me called something else.”

Hawke’s face splits into a crooked smile and he wiggles his fingers, sending purple arcs of lightning scattering harmlessly to the ground.

“Yeah, we’ve heard of you, Inquisitor.”


	25. Chapter 25

There is something wrong with his Warden.  Alistair watches his face throughout the entire gauntlet.  It’s bare, blank.  From the moment he saw the young woman who gave him the mirrored amulet, his face was closed off.  He knows that she’s his cousin, the one he feels he failed.  But that is all he knows.  Devyn hasn’t chosen to share that with him yet and he glances at Zevran and jealousy overcomes him.  He wonders if Devyn’s told him all the dark secrets about his life.  It pains Alistair that he isn’t privy to it.  His lover’s so cagey sometimes.  Every time he admits something, he quiets before more can be said.  It’s like he gives Alistair the key to one door only for him to open it and find four more locked ones.

After they kill Kolgrim and his cult, he’s giddy.  He tells Leliana that he only preserved the ashes because he wanted Kolgrim’s axe.  He grins cheekily and she tweaks his nose.  There’s laughter in her words though and Alistair wishes he could laugh along with them.  Zevran comes up behind him and throws his arms loosely, casually, around Devyn’s shoulders.  Devyn smiles and leans back.  Zevran nuzzles into him and presses a kiss to his temple.

That, of course, doesn’t make the green-eyed monster claw and coil around Alistair’s insides.  He knows how their friendship works.  How it’s casual touches and friendly intimacy.  He knows that, in that department, he has nothing to worry about.  He trusts Devyn and, against all odds, he even trusts Zevran.

Up ahead, he’s rocking their bodies together and they’re killing themselves laughing.  Leliana looks proper big sister, all eye rolls and head shakes, but she can’t hide the way her mouth curls up at the edges.  Alistair feels apart from the merriment--this odd, misplaced merriment--because he can feel that there’s something wrong.  That this moment of joviality is forced, at least on Devyn’s part.  He wishes that he can reach out to him, ask him what’s wrong.  But he can’t.

\--

Back at camp, Devyn volunteers them both for first watch, which means he has plans for them later that night.  On one level, Alistair is happy.  Since losing his virginity, he’s discovered that he has quite the appetite for sex.  Particularly sex with Devyn.  He can’t get beyond the softness of his hair or the surprising roughness of his palms.  The way his eyes reflect in the darkness like a cat’s or how his teeth come to a slight point and worry his lower lip when he comes.

They sit around the fire, not speaking.  Usually their nights on watch are full of conversations about everything and nothing.  Devyn lies out on his lap and stares up at the stars, relating stories he loves and has memorized.  Alistair strokes his hair as he speaks, fully engrossed in every word coming out of his mouth.  Instead, he feels like they’re far apart.  It has something to do with the Gauntlet, he knows it, but he cannot bring it up.

Devyn stares into the crackling fire, knees drawn up to his chest and his chin resting over top of them.

“You alright?”

It’s an awful question and Alistair wishes that he didn’t ask it but it’s out there.  Dane lifts his head from where it rests on his huge paws.  His eyelids are at half-mast and his upper lip is half-tucked in his mouth.  Great, the dog realizes what a mistake Alistair just made.  He lets out a mix between a snuffle and a growl and his head drops once more.

“You can tell, can’t you?”

Devyn doesn’t look at him.  His eyes remain on the fire as if it will impart the mysteries of Thedas to him.

“Huh?”

“You can tell,” he repeats. “You can tell when I’m not quite right.”

Alistair feels his face flush.

“I’m not--”

“No, don’t.  C’mon--no self-deprecation right now, alright?” He smiles a little and the scar tissue around his eyes puckers a bit. “You’re way more perceptive than you think.”

He means to argue that he’s not, not really, but decides against it.

“Is it about the Gauntlet?  Your cousin?”

He nods.  His eyes look a bit glassy and Alistair can’t tell if it’s because of their long day or from unshed tears.

“Shianni’s a year older than me.  She’s always protected me when we were little...when my mouth would get in the way.  She’s the one who found me in that warehouse when those humans bolted me in that crate.  And I...I couldn’t save her.  Not this one time.  I couldn’t…”

He takes in a shaky breath and rubs his hands rapidly through his hair.

“Devyn…”

“And I killed the humans responsible.  Me’n’Soris.  We killed ‘em all but.  It was too late.  Even cutting off Vaughan’s sodding head couldn’t make up for the fact that I let her down.  That I couldn’t get there in time.”

He presses the flat of his thumb in the spot between his eyebrows and lets out a shuddering sigh.  His entire body seems to slump forward.  Alistair has no idea what to say and he knows if he opens his mouth, he’ll ruin everything so he just holds his arms out.  Devyn leans over--topples, more like--and lands on him.  Dane lifts his head for a moment more but when he sees that his master hasn’t spontaneously keeled over, he goes back to sleep.

“Thank you,” he says and his eyes droop shut.

“I didn’t do anything.”

Devyn opens his eyes once more and smiles up, one side hitching higher than the other courtesy of a new injury that mars the side of his lip.  A remnant from one of the drakes in the ruin.  Wynne says it should heal fine.

“Yes you did.  C’mere.”

“I’m already here!”

That gets a laugh out of him.  His raspy, shrill laugh that Leliana says is like scraping bones together and Oghren says is like an axe being dragged over an anvil.

“I mean...c’mere.”

The laugh fades and the look in his eyes in anything but innocent.

“Oh--oh!”

Devyn pulls himself up so he’s straddling Alistair before he brings their mouths together.  Alistair’s hands immediately go under his shirt and stroke up and down his back.  He can feel the knobby parts of his spine and they flex inward under his hand as Devyn arches his back.  He’s leaning back, his hands cupping Alistair’s face and his hips moving against his, grinding.  A good feeling.  Alistair catches his lower lip between his teeth and Devyn’s canine scrapes at his tongue accidentally.

He breaks the kiss and smiles at him, bangs hanging low in his eyes.

“I’m so glad I have you.  That you get me.”

“I’ll, uh, always be here?” he tries to sound romantic but instead it comes out as perplexed. “To get you.”


	26. Chapter 26

The room is spinning and that’s when Devyn realizes that he’s drunk.  He’s drunk and he’s sunk the last of his coin into booze again.  He had promised his papa that he was going to pick up some spices but now he’ll have to find a way to make it back.  Odd jobs fixing things up around the Alienage, maybe.  Lifting things.  Moving things.  People admire his strength at least if only because they can use it.  That thought almost makes him smile.  He’s good at being used, isn’t he?

He drains the last mug and shakes his head--wobbles it, really--when someone offers him another one.  He holds up the cracked leather purse he keeps his coin in and squeezes it in one hand to show it’s empty.  And he’s aware, suddenly, of eyes on him.  A man is staring at him, two men, it looks like with his gaze swimming as it is.

Devyn closes one eye to get a better look at the man and he must take it as a wink because he eases off the stool and swaggers over to him.  He looks much like the men he normally picks up: greasy, pot-bellied, stinking of drink, and at least twice his age.

“Yer an awright-lookin’ elf, aintcha?”

It’s not the greatest compliment someone’s paid him but it’s up there and, if he were sober, he would try to parse exactly what that means but he’s not and so he just smiles back at him.  His lips stick to his teeth in that dry-wet sticky way they do when he’s had too much to drink.  The man holds out a sweaty paw and Devyn takes it.  He lets him lead him behind the Pearl where he bends him over a crate and fucks him without any foreplay or fanfare.  He presses his forehead against the wooden wall of the brothel and waits it out.  He knows, like all other men, that they don’t care about his pleasure.  They’ll get off and he’ll wank himself while they watch and get off again and then they’re going their separate ways and, Maker, he hopes he makes it back home in one piece.

After the usual dance is done, he sits on the crate his cock was bumping against--barely hard and now chafed and splintered--his trousers done back up.  He’s got his knees drawn to his chest and he rests his elbows on them and his forehead on flat planes of his arms.

“‘Ere.”

A sound of clinking at his feet and Devyn glances up.  The world tilts again and he almost retches but keeps it in, barely.

“What’s this?”

“Yer fee.  Forty silver.”

“My…”

And through his alcohol-subdued mind he realizes: the man thinks that he works at the Pearl.

“Figgered you didn’t get many customers with them scars.  Figgered I’d do ya a favor.”

He swaggers away, settling his belt down below his belly as he does and, Maker’s cock, he looks so rutting pleased with himself.  Pleased at himself for doing a favor for the poor, pathetic, hideous elf.

Devyn picks the purse up and wants to fling it at his retreating back but he doesn’t think he can aim properly in his current state.  Instead he stares at the purse and doesn’t open it.  Just rolls it around in one hand, hearing the clink of coin on coin.  His pride wouldn't allow him to take it but his pride also wouldn’t have let him be fucked by that slimy pig.  He pockets the purse and vows to use the coin only on food for him and papa.  There’s a metallic taste in his mouth, at once, and he thinks it’s his own revulsion but...it’s just nausea.  He doubles over and knees slip down from the crate so his bare feet patter on the packed dirt and he vomits between them.  His hand clenches the purse and the other knots itself in his threadbare shirt and he upends everything he wasted his money on for the past several hours.

Everything burns afterwards.  His throat, his face, his eyes.  Hot tears are threatening to tip over the cusp of his lids and he can’t tell if it’s because of his shame or the vomiting.

He leans back and rests his head against the side of the brothel.  Tilts back his chin so his tears seep out and go into his ears.  He’s been left in the alley like refuse.  Garbage.  Yes, garbage.  Because that’s all he is.  All he’ll ever be.


	27. Chapter 27

Zevran cherished the nights where Devyn actually got sleep.  Since the Blight, he had been up far more than he wasn’t.  The only times he truly slept through the night were when he drank himself to sleep.  Right now, he was stretched out in the bed next to him, his breathing rhythmic and his eyes moving rapidly under the thin skin of his lids.  His hair hung loose, just past his shoulders.  Zevran’s own hair was hitting mid-back length but Devyn never let his grow too far past his shoulders.  To Zevran, that was a victory over the boy who used to hate having his hair past his ears.

He still wore Alistair’s necklace, now with him on his side, the chain pooled on the mattress and the amulet rested in front of it, the moonlight sinking into the hairline fractures on its surface.  Zevran studied him, not used to seeing his friend so still.  The sheets were low and tangled in his legs, allowing him to see the tattoo of roses that crept up his left thigh the curve around the hipbone.  Zevran had done that one himself, like he had written “Alistair” in script over his heart.  He knew that no matter how many years he got between him and the Blight, Devyn would never forget Alistair.  He had never believed in soul mates until he saw the love between the two Wardens.

Part of him wanted to reach out to stroke Devyn’s hair, to smile at him, glad that he was asleep.  But that would ruin it.  The slightest touch would rouse him from his slumber and it would be ruined.  He would be bouncing around the room, excited and awake and then Zevran wouldn’t get any sleep either.  Instead he puckered his lips and kissed the air.  He loosely laced their fingers together and tucked his head into the curve of Devyn’s shoulder.

Sometimes he was afraid that he was in love with him, that true, pure love that he had only felt once before.  And worse, that it was a love that could never be returned because Devyn still loved a ghost.  It was these moments where he blurred that line between the nature of their friendship and romance but it didn’t take long for him to come to his senses.  He and Devyn loved each other but the love they shared didn’t match the love between him and Alistair or what Zevran had with Rinna.  It was a different kind of love he couldn’t define except in the sense that he needed Devyn to live.  Even though he wasn’t that grieving teenager with a deathwish anymore, he still didn’t want him out of his sight.  Not just for his safety but because he didn’t want to lose him.

He exhaled and snuggled his body closer to Devyn’s before he let sleep take him as well.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> au-business where Duncan returns.

When he came back, it was like Andraste’s second coming.  The sun backed him like a holy glow and glittered off of his armor.  Devyn had to close his eyes at the sparkling grandness of it all.  The image should have filled him with hope and it did, in a way.  No longer did he, a seventeen-year-old kid, have to fumble around trying to save Ferelden.  He could put it in the hands of an expert, someone who had been doing it for decades.  Yet there was a measure of dread tingling in the pit of his stomach and he knew it had nothing to do with the mysterious circumstances of his resurrection.

“Duncan!” Alistair’s loud, ecstatic cry brought him back to reality. “You’re back!”

Duncan stared down at his hands as if he couldn’t believe it but he only had a moment to himself before Alistair was on him, nearly tackling him to the ground in an enthusiastic hug.  Devyn felt the dread mount once more and, yes, there was the reason.  Duncan was back and that meant that Alistair’s unrequited crush would come back and maybe now that he was less childish, less naive, he could talk to him about it and it wouldn’t be quite so unrequited anymore.  Devyn watched him jabber on with Duncan and felt him grow farther and farther away.  

Tears burned in his eyes and he tried to will them down.  He had been fooling himself all along.  Alistair only used him as a placeholder for Duncan...he only used him to learn how to kiss, how to have sex.  Maybe he hadn’t meant to but with Duncan here, it was gone.  The love between them fractured and cracked and he would be left with nothing, no one.  He had just kept the spot warm for Duncan’s return.  Now that Alistair was all grown-up and able to stand up for himself.

He wasn’t...he couldn’t...no, he didn’t want to bear that.  Alistair looking at him with his earnest face and breaking his heart.  He knew it was foolish of him to have fallen in love.  Someone like him didn’t deserve it.

He watched Alistair call over the others to introduce them to Duncan and he saw that giddy, puppy, lovestruck look on his face.  The look he usually reserved for him.  He couldn’t stand it anymore.  Alistair obviously wasn’t going to notice if he ran out into the woods and so that was just what he did.

\--

He was high up in one of the large trees that sheltered their campsite and he realized it was a bad idea.  Climbing up trees was easy enough but Devyn was beginning to realize that he didn’t really know how to climb down.  Well, that could wait.  He wasn’t coming down for some time.

“Devyn?”

He closed his eyes and wished that the voice calling to him belonged to someone else.  That Alistair had sensed his discomfort and found him and came to tell him it was still him that he loved.  That Duncan being back meant nothing.  But that wasn’t the case.  He looked down from his perch to see Zevran standing at the base of the tree.

“Can I come up?” he asked and quirked a brow.

Devyn shrugged and, within moments, the other elf was settled next to him on the sturdy branch.

“Alistair asked where you were,” he explained. “I said I’d go look for you...I pretended that I didn’t see you run into the woods.”

“He asked for me?” He tried not to let hope pepper his words.

“He asked where you were.”

He lowered his eyes, ashamed at himself.

“You see it, too, don’t you?”

Zevran nodded and then, in an uncharacteristic show of compassion, leaned over to wrap his arms around him.

“I’m so sorry.”

He let Zevran hold him for some time before he felt ready enough to go back to camp.  He had to let Zev help him down from the tree but that was alright because it ate up more time.  Together, they broke the treeline to see most of the others gathered around the fire.  Firelight blinked off of Duncan’s armor and it made him look positively more perfect.  Alistair sat close to him, his face eagerly turned as if Duncan’s profile was the most fascinating thing in the world.  He didn’t even turn to notice him when Devyn sat by the fire.

“Ah, Devyn.  It’s good to see you.”

Duncan did, however.  Alistair broke his intense staring and turned to look at him.  At once, he seemed to realize what was going on and his face fell.  A mean part of Devyn felt glad.  He was thinking, “Good.  Feel bad about how you’re treating me.  How you’re shattering my heart.”  But he kept it down.  Kept it quiet.

“It’s good to see you, too, Duncan,” he said instead.  He tilted his head to the side and smiled a wide, fake smile.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t glad for Duncan being back, of course.  It was the implication about what it meant for him and Alistair.  Not that he had any clue if Duncan felt for Alistair in return but Alistair’s obsession with him was enough to make him feel grief grip his chest.

He stood abruptly.

“I’m going for a walk.”

Zevran looked at him in concern and Leliana had a frown on her face, her eyebrows knit together in an expression that could only be interpreted as “poor baby.”  He turned towards the outskirts of camp and whistled for his dog.

“Come on, Dane.  Let’s go.”

He felt the others watching him as he headed down away from camp but felt Alistair’s gaze in particular.  He ignored them all and disappeared again.

\--

He knew it was immature to keep hiding out in the woods rather than face the issue but if he didn’t face the issue then he could put off Alistair breaking his heart.  He punched at a tree, leaving in it a hole.

“Sorry, tree,” he mumbled.

Dane cocked his head at him curiously and nosed at his thigh.  Devyn reached out and scratched him behind the ears.

“I’m fine, boy.”

Dane didn’t look convinced and Devyn decided he wished he had a regular dog like the strays that wandered around the Alienage and not an unnaturally smart Mabari.

“I believe there is some sort of context I am missing.”

Devyn’s spine fused and he turned around slowly to see that Duncan was behind him.  He swallowed and put his hands behind his back sheepishly.

“Uh...there might be.”

“You and Alistair...you are together?”

He nodded and looked away.

“If you want him, it’s fine.  He’s forgotten about me anyhow.”

If there was a prize for self pity, he was sure he would win it.

“That’s alright, I...do not care for him in that way.” Duncan stroked his fingers down his beard as he spoke. “Alistair is like a son to me or a much younger brother.  I held him when he was an infant.  I do not feel for him romantically.”

“How did you…?”

Duncan shook his head.

“Another time.  Do you think I would take him from you?”

“It wasn’t you I was worried about.”

He still had questions about what Duncan just said but he let them pass for now.

“Alistair’s excitement over my return will fade.  His love for you won’t.”

“Like you’d know.” He snorted and then cringed.  This was Duncan he was talking to. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.  Seeing someone you love ignore you in favor of someone else is never easy.  I do not believe Alistair meant it but he did hurt you and you have every right to feel this way.”

Part of him hated that Duncan was being so logical, so nice.

“The thing is...he loved you first.  He’ll continue to love you even if, technically, he’s still with me.  And that’s the worst.”

Dane nuzzled his nose into Devyn’s palm and made a whimpering noise of compassion.

“For that I am truly sorry.”

He laughed bitterly and said, “It’s not your fault.”

\--

It was his watch with Alistair when it finally came up.  They always had watch together but now he was regretting it.

“Devyn…” he said his name softly and it hurt, Maker it hurt. “I need to tell you something.”

He stared deeply into the fire and tried to remember Duncan’s words.

“Uh-huh.”

“I...I have feelings for Duncan.”

“No shit,” he said bluntly.

Alistair seemed taken aback but continued speaking.

“I want to see where things go with him...now that there’s a chance.”

He had been trying to build up his resistance but it failed.  His heart shattered and he expected the tears to come.  They didn’t.  Instead all that came out was loud, uproarious laughter.

“What?  What’s funny?” Alistair asked. “Are you alright?  With this?...Devyn?”

He turned to face him and, through his laughter, he tried to speak.

“Duncan doesn’t want you.  He told me himself.  He sees you like a son.”

“Wh-what?”

“Duncan doesn’t want you!” he repeated, louder this time. “He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t!  And do you know who else doesn’t want you?”

Alistair looked positively pitiful now.

“Who?”

“Me!  I don’t deserve this treatment, shemlen shitstain!  I don’t deserve it from you or anyone else!”

He wondered where this anger was coming from but part of him knew.  The desolation and sadness were fading into white hot rage.

“Sit around moping and pining for Duncan all you want and remember that you’ll never have him and you’ll never get me back either.”

He turned and began stomping away, watch be damned.  He heard the scrape of dirt behind him and knew Alistair was on his feet following him.

“Devyn, wait.”

He whirled around.

“Sod off,” he snarled. “I loved you, you bastard, and you were going to break my heart hours after Duncan came back.  Because our weeks, months, together mean nothing now that he’s back.  But, haha, joke’s on you.  He doesn’t want you either!  So it looks like you’ve got nothing!”

Turning his back on him again hurt but he had to do it.  Alistair was willing to throw away what they had so he could have “a chance” with Duncan.  He didn’t even seem to care about his feelings.  He could work with him together as Wardens but he would never forgive him.  And, worse, he knew that there was a part of him that would never stop loving him either.

 


	29. Chapter 29

When the dreams came back, he knew it was time.  He was back in Ferelden, his homeland, and it was as though it knew.  The Taint itself.  He kissed his father good-bye and hugged his cousins.  Zevran came with him because he couldn’t imagine life without him.  What Wardens would accompany him to Orzammar would huff about it but Zevran aided in the ending of the Blight and so nothing more could be said.

Devyn thought it ironic that he was dying underground.  The place he hated most.  All these years and he had never gotten over that fear of enclosed spaces.  The Warden Commander who had taken his place was there, his pouting face schooled into a look of concern.  Out of all the Wardens assembled, he looked the most sincere in his look of grief.

The celebration was forced.  Many Wardens resented him for taking off to Antiva but allowed him respect for ending the Blight.  At the entrance, he kissed Zevran tenderly, pressing his forehead against his and letting it linger.  He linked their fingers brought his hands to his heart.  He loved him, really.  His constant companion for these last thirty years.

“Do not go quietly,” Zevran said.

“Do I ever?”

Dane wasn’t coming.  He was back at home with his father, living out the rest of his abnormally long Mabari life.  He was happier there in the Alienage.  Soris’s children loved playing with him and they took puppies back to Highever.  Now, after he parted from Zevran, it was just him.

It didn’t take long.  He hadn’t been combat like this for years and the Darkspawn were so many.  He was older, threads of silver mixing in with his black hair, lines on his face below his scars.  Still, he fought.  He could still swing his axe, still had that strength of his.  But it was too much.

The Darkspawn swarmed over him, crushing him.  His mind flashed back to that time almost forty years ago when he was locked in the crate and, again, he panicked.  His hand relaxed on the handle of his axe and he let them crush him.  Then, the light.  Devyn sat up, the Darkspawn gone.  There was just the light.  A little, he could see the curved sides of the tunnel but it was already fading, like a dream.  A figure appeared in the middle of the light and he smiled.  A shadow at first, it grew more defined, human.  Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and he pretended that it was from the sudden appearance of blinding light.

The figure came into focus and his smile grew.  He had been waiting for this for three decades.  Alistair held his hand out, smiling that way he always smiled--somewhat stilted and awkward but warm and genuine.  Devyn took his hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.  As he did, his appearance changed.  The lines disappeared, the gray in his hair darkened to black, his body lighter and more resilient.

“You’re finally here.” Alistair’s voice was ethereal and more of an echo in his head.

A million responses flooded through his head but then it went blank, empty.  No words could convey how he felt.  Instead he just smiled, smiled in a way he hadn’t in some time.

He closed his eyes and let Alistair pull him into the light.

 


End file.
